Smile Harps on Professionalism, ‎Partners 10 Bloggers ‎

Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, the 4G LTE broadband provider renowned for superfast and reliable Internet service, has identified professionalism, passion and content creation as critical in enhancing capacity of bloggers in the West African region.
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Mrs. Alero Ladipo, ‎chief marketing officer, Smile Communications Nigeria Limited, made the remark during a presentation titled, ‘How to Promote Your Blog’, at West Africa Blogger Conference (WABC) 2015, held in Lagos at the weekend.
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Ladipo said that in as much as bloggers must ensure explicit, informative and clearly defined content delivered with passion and fun, they should not relent in professionalizing in order to attract right businesses to monetize the enterprise.
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Essentially, she listed qualities that distinguish bloggers from others to including sticking to their already created niches built on professionalism, unique, responding quickly to trends, invest on the content design, while building loyal audience, relationships and reaching out to experts.
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The Company is already preparing grounds to partner with ten (10) bloggers to support them in lifting the platforms to greater heights.
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The Smile Communications CMO said, “People think that blogging is habit that anybody can just pick up and start practicing it. However, as we get more people entrenched in consistent growth, it becomes important we make it professional. Essentially, readers visit bloggers for a particular reason. By implication, a blog is not a dumping ground. Stick to the core reason you started the blog and adhere to your principles.
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“There is a philosophy that you stick to certain principles even when many people are deviating; it is the same thing with blogs. When you maintain the professional competencies, people will come to partner with you. For instance, on the course of my presentation I randomly asked participants ‘sell me your blog’, which is simply to market the platform, but people fell-flat on their faces. It is important you know what your blog is all about and can sell it. Present it appropriately”.
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Ladipo added that for bloggers to attain their expected heights, “they should improve on the marketing and how to communicate. A lot of people do not know how to use the available tools. For instance, everybody talks about social media, but nobody talks about how they can grasp onto the social media.

“People need to understand about target audience, segmentations, and how to retain people’s interest that they continue to visit your blog; keeping people interested and understand that you are one amongst many.
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“That’s the strength you need to have; the tools of marketing and communication and it does not require long sessions of learning. It can be an hour session of going through the principles of marketing and communication at a 101 (introductory) level, because you are not trying to go deeper on the subject, but how to use the tools. Truly, content is king, but you needed to be smart about it. That is where marketing and communication aspect comes in”.
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Meanwhile, the CMO speaking on why Smile Communications chose to support the conference, said, “We chose to support the Conference due to the link between our service offering and what the bloggers do. During my presentation, I asked how many people had internet connection in order to monitor what is happening now or what has happened in the last hour that could inspire your writing. How are they going to know if not with internet connectivity”.
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According to her, internet connectivity is a utility that soon will be in the range of demands like water supply, electricity, etc. I will take it further to say blogging, internet provision and lifestyle are all connected. So, we partnered with the organizers as a way of bridging the gap between life style and communication”.
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On the drive to partner with some bloggers, Ladipo said, “the organizers will help in screening ten bloggers that Smile Communications will partner with from our perspective”.
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Earlier, Mr. Ayodele Oyebade, ‎managing director, Advert Strikers Limited, and convener of the Conference, thanked Smile Communications magnanimity in supporting the conference where a new chain of professional bloggers will emerge.
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Speaking specifically on the motivation behind the conference, he said, “We help bloggers to monetize their contents. We realized that majority of the exiting bloggers in the region need to learn a lot. Some of our clients in Nigeria, Asia, even Israel do complain that they are not getting the kind of mirage they expect.

“Meanwhile, premium bloggers in the category of Linda Ikeji, Bellanaija, etc, they have fixed rates. Clients know them and so talk to them directly. But we want every blogger to rise to the expectations. We want to say, regardless of the niche, you are an authority in your area, we want you to understand what the brands are looking for and you can relate with the audience.
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“It goes beyond writing good articles, writing for fun, getting little AdSense and/or doing copy and paste from premium blogs. We are trying to expose the bloggers to the nitty-gritty of the profession. That’s why we partnered some corporate bodies like Smile Communications, Jumia, Google, MTN, etc. They have done very well in supporting this conference.
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“In blogging you need to understand the dynamics and the ecosystem of how the platforms operate. For instance, you are writing about automobile. You have to be sure on what the audience want; you need to know the psychology, the general spare that will affect monetization and audience engagement.
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“Smile Communications has informed us of their decision to partner with bloggers. I am particularly happy with Smile Communications because they are going to show them how to make money with their blogs with their content. Jumia is doing similar thing with it affiliate platform”. 
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Oyebade urged the participants to utilize the opportunity created at the conference to reach out to influencers and engage on self-assessment questions, adding that the future of bloggers have become even brighter in the present technology driven age.

Smile Communications Nigeria Limited is justly famous for its transformative objective of using the best and most innovative technologies to provide its customers with high quality, easy to use and affordable communication services. Smile’s vision and mission, remains the quest to be the broadband provider of choice in Nigeria and to enable its customers to fully benefit from the Internet world.